Chapter Text
Day 6.
Takumi Sumino is a killer.
This fact is at odds with the flustered boy explaining time travel to Yugamu and his cohorts. He doesn't carry himself with the surety of a killer, the conviction. What Takumi does have in spades, however, is regret.
"Eito was going to take out Sirei," Takumi said, while Yugamu could not find it in himself to mourn Sirei like Nigou does.
"Eito was going to sabotage the mission."
"Eito was going to get three of us killed."
Yugamu does not miss the many forlorn glances in Nozomi's direction. She also picks up on the grief cast her way, as she shifts uncomfortably. She listens with the utmost attention, and Yugamu wonders how any of them are supposed to feel about this boy, and how he feels about them.
Takumi Sumino may have killed a man, but he isn't a killer.
Not in the sense that Yugamu was hoping for.
Takumi talks his throat raw with an endless cascade of platitudes and excuses.
Supposedly, apparently, hypothetically Eito Aotsuki was a killer.
He killed two people (supposedly), contributed to the deaths of two more (a glance in Nozomi's direction), ruined the mission (what is it with World Death anyway?) and now Takumi has killed him before any of that stuff could ever even be dreamed about.
There's retro movies about this sort of dilemma.
And when they ride the bus to that other academy, the real one, it turns out Takumi Sumino does not even have the gall to reveal that the main suspect in the other murder is himself.
Day 7.
Takumi Sumino does not appear like a killer, even when everyone's convinced he is. As that pink girl proclaims him guilty until proven innocent, he truly blunders through his words the way only an innocent man can. Yugamu's seen it himself, on the occasion his own cover-ups required implicating somebody else.
And yet, the very next morning, they're all thrust into their first battle against a commander, and Yugamu sees… a machine.
That's the only way to describe Takumi on the field, really. He wields his katana like a storm, flames bright blue as lightning and as merciful as a gas explosion. Yugamu barely has time to act. Sneak in a kill here, slow down enemies there– Not that Takumi has any need for that.
When Nozomi fired a booster at him, oh boy. The commander should be pitied.
And when nobody took up the blade, Takumi saw it necessary to execute the poor bastard himself.
One strike, right between the ribs. Right into the heart.
Like he'd done it a hundred times already.
Not a lick of love behind it.
Day 8.
The little detective has asked the assassin to help in her investigation. It sounds like something out of a book to Yugamu, but when the kid approaches him with pep in her step, her brother glaring daggers just a step behind her, who is he to refuse?
"You've seen dead bodies before, right?"
"I've caused dead bodies before, yes."
That's all the word she needs to lead him to the morgue.
It's a funny place, that morgue. Weirdest morgue he's ever seen, though Yugamu hasn't actually been in many.
It looks exactly like a classroom, for one, if you exclude the red light and low temperature. And yet, not a hint of rot is in the air.
"Kako, you can leave this to the expert, I am certain Mister Omokage will give you a nice and detailed report," Ima says, not so subtly placing himself between Kako and the body.
But Yugamu just whisks the cloth off anyways.
"So, miss detective, please tell me about the victim."
Detective Kako rattles it off like a seasoned veteran. She even crosses her arms and pitches her voice gruffer, "Gaku Maruko, age sixteenish, killed the morning of Day 5. Cause of death: stab wounds and subsequent blood loss. Time of death: between 1am and 4am. Alibis: none."
Ima looks offended at the 'no alibis' part, but that's frankly not Yugamu's problem.
Just a glance confirms the cause of death, at least. Stab wounds, and a lot of them. Littered all over the chest. "First off, he's been attacked from the front."
Kako steps back as Yugamu flips the body over. "No wounds on the back…*
"Right." He flips the body back on the front, feeling something like a line cook. It's not often he gets to handle the bodies.
Seeing another's handiwork is… new, but not that exciting. Maruko's face is frozen in eternal shock, "probably knew the attacker, judging by that face," but it'll stay there for all time. Nothing dynamic, nothing changing, nothing thrilling.
Just… dead.
He peers closer at the wounds, puts a finger to the deepest one he finds. "Some go straight, some are angled. The attacker was most likely taller than him. Might've pushed him to the ground and then kept going at it."
"And that exonerates Sister Dearest and I!"
"Shush, Ima. He's reporting."
Somebody put a lot of force into those stabs. Everything would've been over by the time they punctured a lung. "You suspect a kitchen knife as the murder weapon, correct? Seems about right. It wasn't a serrated weapon, at least. The tip had to be sharp to get in this deep through clothing."
They'd cut through ribs. Not around, just through.
Messy, yet elegant in its sheer brutality. Not something Yugamu would ever get away with. At least with the strikes to the lung, the victim wouldn't have been able to scream long… But the kill itself was too drawn out, too inefficient.
Too much blood spilled for efficient clean-up.
…Which may have been the point, considering the Revive-O-Matic. Even then, though, there are better methods to bleed a corpse dry. Especially if you don't go for the heart first.
The killer wanted it to hurt. Wanted it to last.
A grudge, perhaps. Rage, slowly boiling, until it exploded out of the killer into wanton wrath. No desire except to see Maruko writhe agony to his last, choking breath.
Yet there's always something so romantic about close-range weapons like this. It's the weapon of choice for scorned lovers, after all. Ubiquitous, easy to access in the heat of the moment.
Up close and personal. Close enough to feel the victim's heartbeat, their tears flowing on your skin, blood spilling onto your chest. This culprit had Maruko pinned like one of those scorned lovers, pushing in again and again and again, as deep as they could.
Even if the body itself doesn't evoke emotion, the picture it pains of the killer certainly does.
Yugamu leaves it at the couple of things he can be more or less sure of: the culprit was taller than Maruko, had a straight blade, likely a kitchen knife, and probably pushed him on his back, which was backed up by the fact he'd been found supine.
Kako jots it down with due diligence, and then excuses herself, alongside her brother. "We're going to look at the kitchen," she declares, "and see if any knives are missing."
Which depended on someone having kept inventory of the kitchen knives. Yugamu doubts it. That's the thing with perfect crimes. They don't really exist, but master detectives don't, either. They have nothing for fingerprinting, nothing for DNA analysis, not even luminol. With no advanced forensics to speak off, the culprit honestly did not have to be all too careful.
However, the twins' fruitless quest has accomplished one thing.
It's left Yugamu alone in the morgue.
Together with the second body hiding there.
"So this is Eito…"
Eito is still in class armor.
Yugamu can't help himself. He trails a nail along the chest piece lovingly sculpted into muscle fiber. Or perhaps the class armor isn't a shell, but a shelling. They're all skinning themselves alive to unleash the spark hidden in their hearts.
That spark has gone out, leaving Eito's chest a hollow cavern.
Just like Maruko, his face is still frozen in shock.
Why would he have been, though? He and Takumi fought. A killing blow is to be expected.
Yugamu can barely tear his eyes away from that empty chest. But he does, instead focusing on what other injuries he sees.
Slashes, and a lot of them. Matching in width to Takumi's class weapons. Far unlike the wild stabs Maruko's body is littered with. No, they concentrate on the limbs. Digging not just into the forearms, which Eito may have blocked blows with, but into the shins and thighs as well.
To slow down and incapacitate. Nothing overtly lethal.
In fact, there's no fatal injury at all. None that Yugamu can see without cracking the class armor open, anyways.
Unless… Unless Yugamu follows his desires.
He reaches into the hollow.
It's… smooth. Not fleshy at all. No squelch. A simple smooth nothing, only interrupted by the shape of the ribs. Not even a trace of the lungs, though they should've been there. Until Yugamu caresses every inch of that surface, and finds at the very back… a strike. Right through where that heart-flame would've been.
One single strike to the heart, right between the ribs.
Like he'd done it a hundred times already.
Eito had reason to be shocked, alright. Toyed with for a whole battle by a far superior combatant… yet spared.
On his knees, perhaps, looking at his judge and jury. And Takumi, looking down at his trembling foe, wavering back and forth over what must be done.
The battle hadn't started with the intent to kill.
And yet…
…a decision had been made, anyways.
The corpses do not have much in common beyond both being stabbed. The methodology, the weapon, the intent, are so very different.
Even so, both their dying breaths spoke of betrayal.
Day 9.
The world sleeps together with Takumi.
Nobody kills. Nobody is killed. Yugamu volunteers for extra shifts by Takumi's bedside as those who vilify him try to skirt the task.
He's healing nicely. No sign of infection. Takumi's begun twitching in his sleep recently, though Yugamu misses shifting his position manually.
With every passing day, Yugamu wants to speak with him more. Know him more. Understand him beyond the corpses in his wake.
It's what they all think. Takumi sleeps, and no one dies? Doesn't that prove he's the killer to begin with?
The sleeping beauty furrows his brow and clenches his fist. Yugamu runs a hand through his hair, in a gesture he hopes is reassuring.
"…Karua…," Takumi mumbles. "Stay…"
He'll wake up soon.
Day 17.
The morgue calls Yugamu back. He can't stop thinking about Aotsuki.
The more he sees those injuries, the more he wonders at Aotsuki's own skill in battle. Blows dodged and deflected until he'd been brought down by a thousand paper cuts.
He thinks about the nightmares written on Takumi's sleeping face, and pictures what caused them.
It's all so clear in his mind. Aotsuki had an impressive physique, the calluses of a knife etched onto the hands beneath his gloves. Without class armor, he wore white, as it was told. Black gloves to hide the stains, yet adept enough to dodge the rest.
Three people.
Yugamu can almost see it. Aotsuki, scythe held high, killing with conviction. With purpose.
With passion.
Takumi may have killed, but he's not a killer, not in that sense, not yet, anyways.
Aotsuki was. No doubt about it.
And that's close enough to love, isn't it?
What a shame they could never meet. What a shame, that all he has is a corpse to tell the story.
Well. And the one who put the corpse here, of course.
Day 24.
The day Takumi wakes, Yugamu is once more drawn to the morgue like a magnet. And today of all days, he's not the only one.
Hiruko is… odd. In battle, she is wild and frenzied. Yet out of battle, she is poised. Where Yugamu reigns himself in by indulging himself every now and then, Hiruko keeps herself on a tight leash.
Her gaze, looking upon Aotsuki, is inscrutable. Something between terse and tense. Contemplative and undecided.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
She brushes her hair, a controlled tick that only enhances her presence. "Eito was always going to end up like this."
"What, dead?"
"Yes."
Closing a corpse's eyes is a sign of respect Yugamu likes to give his victims. Takumi doesn't.
"You've heard of Eito's reasoning for his actions, correct?"
"Not from the man himself." Just about what he supposedly did in two-months time. Yugamu's still inclined to believe it, as Takumi has all the marks of a terrible liar. And little imagination. A guy like that simply cannot come up with a story that outlandish on his own.
But it's that reasoning that Yugamu takes issue with. He recalls, "Takumi said he had some sort of disorder?"
"Yes," Hiruko affirms with crossed arms. "He had a cognitive disorder, perceiving people as repulsive monsters. It's the cause for his hatred of humanity."
"You truly believe so?"
"What else would it be?" she asks like Yugamu is an idiot.
"Well." Yugamu pauses. "I doubt his condition is the only reason."
"Any other suggestions, then?"
"What did he believe?"
"Excuse me?"
Yugamu steps closer to the body, like that lifeless face will whisper to him all the evils of the world. "Was his hatred a simple physiological revulsion? Or did he oppose humanity ideologically as well?"
For her part, Hiruko drifts closer to Maruko's body instead. "He simply believed humans are evil."
"And what convinced him of that?" Plenty of people take joy in the act of killing in Yugamu's profession. There is an argument to be made that Yugamu is the sole exception, and yet… Yugamu certainly counted among those deemed twisted, but none of them came into the world with this in mind.
Yugamu continues, "Maybe his condition did give him a, let's say, predisposition, for this type of thought. But hating others and killing them are far apart. Something has to turn revulsion into conviction."
"Your point being?"
"Nobody is just born a killer."
Hiruko scoffs and replies no further.
Nobody kills just because they can. Just on a whim.
There's always a reason.
Cognitive disorder. Yugamu wants to laugh. If the world had truly been too horrible for him, Eito would've killed himself instead.
Right as the silence spans between them, Takumi sees fit to stumble into the morgue. His claim to investigate a crime nineteen days after its been committed is adorable enough. Even more so is that, when Hiruko accuses him for his background, Takumi jumps to his defense.
He can't help but smile. How two-faced.
Day 25.
The mere concept of a killing game is disgusting.
Killing out of desperation. Killing for someone's sick amusement. Killing because you are trapped in a box and all you have is a knife.
Yugamu returns to the morgue to clear his mind. Killing and being killed has been all anyone's talking about lately, between Gaku, Eito, Takumi, and this. Even too much of a good thing gets tiring, so a silent corpse is a sight for sore eyes.
Until the doors hiss open. "Hey there, my fellow death enthusiast!" greets Darumi as she waves at him with the brightest cheer anyone's had since this whole war started.
"Sooo," she drawls, "any interest in joining the Killing Game?"
Darumi says it with reverence, as a proper capital K capital G Killing Game. It doesn't take a genius to figure out her sacrament, as blase as it may be.
Appropriately, Yugamu responds, "No thank you." Even as Darumi pouts and sprawls across the nearest free desk to glare at him.
"Why not? Isn't this what your whole SM shtick's about? Stab wounds as a metaphor for anal, or whatever?"
She rolls over, so she directly faces Maruko's paralyzed face. "Just imagine. Maybe like, Takumi, stabbing down again and again and again. Some real enthusiasm. Pretty hot, yeah?"
"For the love of murder, Darumi," Yugamu sighs, "it's not just about the killing. It's about the feelings behind it."
"You calling me a cheap slut? You're too high-brow for some good ol' blood and gore?"
Yugamu doesn't move until she's next to him. She pokes him in the cheek. "But think about it. Everyone pushed to their limits. Isn't it what you want? Imagine the betrayal. The heartbreak! The bond that forms between the survivors as we die one by one!"
Just as light, Yugamu pushes her away by pressing a finger to her nose. "And why should we all take part in your elaborate suicide?"
She giggles, then laughs, exaggerated, practiced after her favorite evil masterminds. "Come on! What's even the point of dying for love if you're dead anyways? The only way I see it, you're just like me, Yugamu. You wanna die, too, don'tcha?"
Her eyes are empty, her grin nothing but paint. Unwittingly, Yugamu takes a step away from her.
But that manic spark returns. "Just think about it, m'kay? I better see you in the leisure lounge this evening. Don't forget! I know where your house lives!"
And with that, she's gone.
Evening comes.
Yugamu goes to the leisure lounge.
Nobody is born a killer, but nobody is born wanting to be killed, either. Every rabbit struggles to escape the fox's maw. Prey adapts. Faster legs, horns to gore with, resistances to the most lethal poisons. And predators adapt, too. New strategies, sharper teeth. Population curves are a push and pull, prey reproduces until it outpaces its environment, when the population can no longer sustain itself. Illness runs rampant, food runs short.
Predators pick up the slack. The excess is culled, for the good of all.
Humans kill for all sorts of petty, disgusting reasons. Money, power, reputation.
But at least there is one.
Unlike Kurara, dangling in the air. Yugamu only wants to kill for the best reason.
Silence fills the space left by Kurara's dying yells. Twenty-five days, he's known her, and been subjected to the most creative insults in his entire life.
But hers is the very first death that stuns Yugamu into silence.
At least, until Takumi breaks it.
He transforms between breaths, has his katana aloft in the time Yugamu could've struck the sponsor five times over if he'd had the mind to do it. Takumi is alight in brilliant blue.
A strike filled with determination. It breaks the spell held over the others, compels Yugamu to follow in his wake.
It's a strike brimming with love and hate alike.
Even as it turns out useless, even as this killing game begins, Yugamu finds– His breath has not quite returned.
If it had worked, it would've been the perfect death.
He hopes that's what Aotsuki's looked like.